Just popping in to be monitored: Hybrid work’s quiet surveillance

This week in workplace whiplash 🌀

From silent disengagement to four-day breakthroughs, here’s what had HR teams blinking into the abyss this week:

• 😟 UK workers already anxious about RTO
  A poll shows nearly 40% of employees say their wellbeing is suffering just from hearing about stricter office mandates.
  👉The Guardian

• 😶 “Quiet cracking” is the new workplace warning sign
  Employees are mentally checking out while still showing up, a trend dubbed "quiet cracking".
  👉India Times

• 😞 Mental health crisis driving young talent out
  Young workers are five times more likely to leave jobs due to mental health, citing toxic environments and lack of trust.
  👉The Guardian

• 📧 Infosys flags overworking staff
  The IT giant now sends automated emails to employees clocking over 9 hours a day, nudging them to log off and breathe.
  👉India Times

From badge tracking to burnout warnings, this week’s news makes one thing clear: people don’t just want flexibility, they want trust. And no, a passive-aggressive calendar sync doesn’t count.

It all sounded reasonable at first. “Work from wherever makes sense.” Great! Then suddenly, my badge swipes, desk usage, and who I sat next to started starring in reports I never even knew existed.

Enter Microsoft Places: a friendly little tool that helps you “coordinate” where you’ll be working. Cute, right? Until you realise it’s also quietly collecting analytics on your every office move (for “optimisation,” of course).

Other platforms don't even bother pretending. Scoop and Density use sensors and calendar data to track real-time office activity. Who’s in? Who’s out? Who’s been parked in the same desk all week? They know, and your manager might too.

Amazon’s infamous “coffee badging” saga has also evolved. Employees are now expected to badge in five days a week. While hourly tracking has been dropped, managers still receive daily attendance logs. Business Insider reports that this shift aims to soften the approach without easing expectations.

As Wired put it, the new surveillance isn’t hard and heavy. It’s subtle. Soft. Friendly, even. Think less Orwell and more “just curious how you're collaborating.”

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👀 Surveillance wrapped in friendly language

This kind of monitoring is rarely marketed as control. It’s often presented as helpful. The language is all about collaboration and coordination.

“We’re just trying to understand how people use the office”. “It helps build connection”. “We’re supporting in-person culture”. 

But behavioural research suggests a different story.

The Hawthorne Effect tells us that people change their behaviour when they know they’re being observed. This can lead to temporary boosts in productivity but rarely holds in the long term.

When people feel watched, they begin managing impressions. They show up, hover around, stay visible, without necessarily doing better work.

Psychological safety can also take a hit. People become less open when they suspect their actions are being logged. And reactance theory tells us that when people feel their freedom is being restricted, even subtly, resistance often follows.

📈 Culture vs compliance

Here’s the real tension. Leaders want energy and serendipitous brainstorms. Employees want to choose how and where they work. And HR? They're caught in the middle, holding the policy binder with a rising sense of dread.

This tension creates confusion. Presence becomes a proxy for performance. The more people feel that being seen matters more than being effective, the less they trust the system around them.

That kind of culture doesn’t spark innovation. It encourages game-playing, workarounds, and quiet resentment.

💡 What organisations can do instead

📊Focus on outcomes, not optics: Instead of counting how many bums are in seats, ask whether in-person time is helping people actually get work done. Are they solving problems faster? Communicating more clearly? If the answer is no, why are we here?

🕵️‍♀️Be honest about what’s being tracked: If you are collecting data, say so. And make sure employees know how it will be used. Hidden metrics breed distrust, whereas clarity builds confidence.

💬 Final thoughts

The problem isn’t the office. Most people are happy to come in when it feels purposeful, not performative. But turn flexibility into quiet compliance, and people stop showing up for the culture. They start showing up just long enough to plan their exit.

Employees don’t want to be managed like machines. They want to be treated like adults. Miss the point, and you won’t just have unbooked desks. You’ll have nobody left to fill them.